The Union Stock Yard Gate, located on Exchange Avenue at Peoria Street, was the entrance to the famous

Union Stock Yards The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meatpacking district in Chicago for more than a century, starting in 1865. The district was operated by a group of railroad companies that acquired marshland and turned it into a central ...

in Chicago. The gate was designed by

Burnham and Root Burnham and Root was one of Chicago's most famous architectural companies of the nineteenth century. It was established by Daniel Hudson Burnham and John Wellborn Root. During their eighteen years of partnership, Burnham and Root designed and b ...

around 1875, and is the only significant structural element of the stock yards to survive. It was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1981. The plaza surrounding the gate also includes the city's principal memorial to its firefighters.

Description

The Union Stock Yard Gate is located on Chicago's South Side, on a plaza in the center of Exchange Avenue at its junction with Peoria Street. This position marked the principal eastern entrance to the stock yards, which occupied several hundred acres to the west. It is a limestone construction with a central main arch flanked by two smaller arches. The main arch is wide and high, with the surmounting truncated hip roof giving the structure a total height of . The piers of the central arch are topped by conical limestone turrets. The smaller side arches are asymmetrical (one is wide, the other ), but are similarly styled on a smaller scale. One of the side arches retains an iron grillwork gate, of a style that both would have originally had. The main gate at one time had an iron portcullis.

History

The Union Stock Yard was established in 1865, as a place to centralize the city's growing meatpacking industry. Its early facilities were constructed out of wood, with some elements later rebuilt in stone. This gate was designed by

Daniel Burnham Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...

and John W. Root, who were responsible for the design of other structures in the yards, and constructed in 1879. The gate and an accompanying gatehouse (since demolished), were the only substantial buildings to survive a fire that leveled the yards in 1934. Restored in the 1970s, the limestone gate now stands as one of the few reminders of Chicago's past dominance in the

meat packing industry The meat-packing industry (also spelled meatpacking industry or meat packing industry) handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is generally no ...

. Over the center arch of the gate is a bust of Sherman, stockyard superintendent John D. Sherman's favorite bull. The gate was designated an official Chicago Landmark on February 24, 1972, and was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

on December 27, 1972. It was then designated a

on May 29, 1981. Directly behind the gate is a memorial statue for Chicago firefighters. The statue is located there because of the Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire, and around the base are engraved the names of all Chicago firefighters ever killed in the line of duty. File:Chicago Union Stockyard Gate.jpg, Current view of the Gate. Firefighters memorial in the center background File:Chicago Fire Department The Fallen 21 Memorial.jpg, Memorial honoring firefighters fallen in the 1910 Stock Yard fire. Located directly behind The Gate File:Chicago Stockyard Industrial Park gate.jpg, Detail of the gate of the Stockyard Industrial Park, featuring a miniature of The Gate is on W 43rd ST at S Ashland AVE. File:Union Stock Yards, Chicago, Illinois, circa 1901-1907.jpg, Postcard of Union Stock Yards, Chicago, Illinois, circa 1901-1907

References

External links

Union Stock Yard Gate
a segment from the film ''

Fast Food Nation ''Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal'' is a 2001 book by Eric Schlosser. First serialized by ''Rolling Stone'' in 1999, the book has drawn comparisons to Upton Sinclair's 1906 muckraking novel '' The Jungle''. The book ...

'' {{Chicago Landmark memorials and monuments Gates in the United States Firefighting memorials Labor monuments and memorials Monuments and memorials in Chicago Firefighting in the United States Buildings and structures completed in 1879 Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Chicago Monuments and memorials on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois National Historic Landmarks in Chicago South Side, Chicago Burnham and Root buildings Chicago Landmarks

Description

History

See also

References

External links